Eleven years ago, my wife, our two sons and I adopted a baby girl from Korea. As she grew up, she began asking questions. When she said, I want to meet someone I'm related to, we went looking. Here'

After 11 years and 6,000 miles, we still hadn't met our daughter's mother. We had come only this close: staked out in a van across from a tiny Seoul coffee shop, the mother inside with a Korean interpreter, afraid to come out, afraid of being discovered, afraid to meet her own flesh.

Inside the van, Rae, our 11-year-old Korean adopted daughter, was trying to make sense of it. How could we have flown the entire family 6,000 miles from Denver to meet a woman who was afraid to walk 20 yds. across the street to meet us? Why had we come...